All the Difference
by Shadow Padawan
Summary: Cousins are not supposed to be lovers. Lily Luna Potter/Louis Weasley.


They look a lot alike, although not quite enough alike to be brother and sister. Lily has her father's green eyes and her mother's red hair. Louis has his mother's eyes and his strawberry blonde hair is a perfect mix of Bill's read and Fleur's silvery blond. They're even less alike in personality. Lily laughs more than he does and her eyes dance as she shifts the green-and-silver scarf around her neck. He likes to smile, but it's soft and shy, hidden somewhere between the black and yellows, stowed away for private moments. He speaks French as well as English and loves it; she wrinkles her nose at the strange throaty sounds French words sometimes make. Lily loves to fly, to be free in the sky, soaring over fields and treetops; Louis prefers the soft magic of his unicorn-hair wand and the charms he has mastered lie far outside of what they teach at Hogwarts.

They could almost not be cousins. They could almost be strangers.

Except they're not and that makes all the difference.

* * *

"The Purebloods married cousins all the time to maintain blood purity," Lily half-quotes from some text at him.

"So?"

She shrugs, allowing the straps of her negligee to slide down her shoulders, smirking when she sees Louis watching her and admiring the smoothness of her skin. "We're Purebloods."

Louis' smile is as soft as ever and he allows silky strands of hair to fall into his eyes. "The Slytherins have been teaching you, Lils."

She pouts and falls back into the cloud of their covers and pillows. The summer is almost over. It's coming to a close with shorter days and watery morning sunlight. Soon Uncle Bill, Aunt Fleur and Dominique will come back from their vacation in Southern France and Shell Cottage will once again bustle with family life. Family life in which Lily has a very specific place and that place is not in Louis' bed. "Our parents are supposed to be liberal…"

"Not that liberal," Louis points out. "In fact, they would see this as a return to the old way. Something you know they fear."

"You should have been a Ravenclaw." She closes her eyes and allows Louis to trace patterns on her skin with his fingers. The sun finds a crack in the curtains and streams into the room, painting the walls and the coverlet, warming Lily's always-cold nose.

She's not unhappy. But he's not happy enough.

* * *

"The Purebloods—"

"Have married cousins for ages. I know, Scorpius."

Term has begun, hot and cloying, too bright and far too rushed for Lily's taste. She's happy to reunite with her group of Slytherin friends who are bonded much tighter than any other House. If the post-war prejudices' had done anything, it was ensure that Slytherins always had each others back. But she misses Louis, misses waking up next to him, misses being so close to someone that she could sometimes finish his sentences for him.

"So…what's the problem?" Scorpius flutters his long lashes at her in confusion and Lily wants to slap him. He's certainly teasing her. Although, knowing Scorpius…

"How about the fact that our parents neither behave nor conceive as Purebloods do?"

"All the better. They won't disown you, only bitch for a while."

Lily sighs and turns away from him, picking at the green fabric of the common room sofa. "They will think we're disgusting. You don't understand."

"So then… you won't be going to the Fall Charity Ball?" She throws him a look and Scorpius shrugs. "Will you be going alone?"

"Of course not. I'm a Slytherin, Scorpius." His grin makes her feel a little better. But only a little.

* * *

Louis watches Lily dance with Amiri Rosier, her long red hair put up into elaborate curls. She wears an ivory gown, bright and almost bridal. He wonders if she had chosen it to mock him on purpose as her Slytherin date twirls her in a expert waltz step. The function is still conservative but it is one of the most prominent charity events of the year and even their parents, noses wrinkled, had to force themselves to go. Louis thinks he wouldn't have bothered coming if he hadn't been dragged. He has no desire to watch Lily dance with Rosier. Nor has he the desire to suffer the dagger-sharp glances she throws him from across the room over the rim on her champagne glass. None of this is his fault, but Lily was never reasonable.

He's good looking, this Rosier boy, and rich and probably smart and funny. He's still a Slytherin, still a Pureblood of the old order, but Louis is willing to bet Harry would rather accept him as a match for Lily than Louis. Because they are cousins and cousins…

What? Don't love? No they love; they may love as tenderly as siblings but also just as purely and platonically. Louis has no desire to incur the wrath of their family. He has always seen himself as a peacekeeper of sorts. But Lily always means to break the rules. She'd been breaking them rather obviously since she was eleven.

* * *

She gives him one last chance as the snow begins to fall. She holds his hand and catches snowflakes with her tongue. Louis watches the snow form drifts on the sides of the road and feels the time slip away from him. He's falling back into his childhood when everything was as simple and bright as early snow. He knows she will follow him if he leads and she will lead if he offers to follow.

Victoire's wedding the other year, Dominique's new, perfect boyfriend. James' proper but liberal-minded finance, Albus' lack of a girlfriend, but he had always been so shy around women than Merlin knows when he would start dating. But he certainly tries as best he can under James' questionable guidance. All of these people and relationships circle in Louis' head. Bleak, blurry silhouettes.

And then there is Louis. Single and permanently taken. Taken in secret. And Lily…

She walks away, looking back every five steps, stopping at the gate, taking a breath. Disappearing.

* * *

"Mom, Dad, James, Albus…everyone…Amiri and I have decided over Christmas break that we would like to be married as soon as we've graduated at the end of this year."

She never looks at him.


End file.
